Mayor: “No such thing as sacred rocks.”

"Mayor Alan Arakawa is coming under fire from social media and elsewhere for saying in a televised “Hawaii News Now Sunrise” interview Friday that “there’s no such thing as sacred rocks.”

In discussing Maui County’s removal of thousands of tons of rocks that were washed downstream as part of the massive Sept. 13 flooding in Iao Valley, Arakawa told a statewide audience: “It’s very simple. There’s no such thing as sacred rocks. First of all, the monarchy, starting with Kamehameha, his lineage, declared Christianity the religion of Hawaii.

“In Christianity, if I remember the Ten Commandments correctly, ‘Thou shall have no false God before me,'” he continued. “There are no sacred rocks in that religion. We have a group of people that are political wannabes that ran for political office the last time, and they’re trying to make an issue out of nothing."